I currently use QuickVPN, however, it does not seem to route my web browsing traffic through a tunnel. Am I correct? It only opens up a tunnel for accessing windows shares and documents back at the office, right so only they are secure?

If I wanted to also mask or make my internet browsing secure and private I would need to setup a SSH tunnel/socks?

2 Answers
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This configuration is known as split tunnelling - your VPN client only sends traffic destined for the office network over the VPN, and saves money in bandwidth utilization (and speeds up your web browsing) by not routing traffic destined for the internet over the VPN and out through the office web proxy.

A SSH tunnel is a point-to-point connection, not a method of internet access, and a SOCKS proxy is a server that acts as a go-between between your PC and the internet and is generally not available to home users.

Secure and private browsing is a pretty deep and broad field of knowledge - but it will require endpoint security (security software on your PC or a firewall you set up between your home network and the internet.) Home and home-office users generally rely on security software installed on their PC - if you have a Windows PC, you will need, at a minimum, decent anti-malware ("AV") and firewall software.

As RI Swamp Yankee notes, the VPN server at your office is pushing a split-tunneling configuration to your client. If you have rights to alter the server setup, you could route all of your Internet traffic through the office gateway.

That would make your Internet browsing as secure and private as it is when you're at work. But it would be exposed to the network admins there, and potentially to other coworkers.

You could secure that with an SSH or VPN tunnel to another server, but I don't see the point of that. You might as well just use an SSH proxy server or VPN from home.